Closing the Allround Book (a journal)

At the beginning of this year I started The Allround Book my recent journal. It is a rather bulky book with 190 pages and I was quite surprised it only took me two and a half months to fill it. Because yes, it's finished already.

I showed you images from the first half of the book in a previous post (which you can find here) in which I also explained why I called it the Allround Book and how it was basically an experiment that did not work out.

But the book itself (as a journal) worked out just fine and I'm very pleased with it. It somehow felt to me like I really got my journaling groove back in this one, after having been a bit going back and forth for a while trying to find my mojo again.

Here are some spreads from the second half of the book:

The book has been used in a very basic way. Lots of writing and then just adding some photographs and ephemera. It's basically the way I do a lot of my travel journals and it suits me right now. The only difference is that I incorporated my morning art practice into this journal as well as part of the experiment.

As we speak I have moved into a different journal and I have also moved my morning art out of the journal again. Both endeavours are for future posts though, so I'll just have to get back to you on that. :-)

For now I wish you all a wonderful and artsy day!

Let's go the beach

Let's go to the beach on a windy day with lots of waves and foam, and let the wind blow your worries away while we walk along the shore line.

If you are more into 'live action' I even have a little video for you. Now keep in mind that blogger downsizes these things so the image quality is not great and for that reason it's best not to play it full screen, but in small size it's good enough to give you an idea and hear the wind.

Also, if I recall correctly if you receive my blogposts in your mailbox, you  may have to go to the actual site to see the video, I'm afraid my control of the mail options are very limited, so sorry for any inconvenience.

Hope you are all feeling refreshed now and wishing you a wonderful and artsy day!

Morning Art

For quite a while now I have done art (almost) every morning. It started in 2015 with over 300 paintings in gouache and then last year I filled a special morning book mostly with drawings of patterns and abstracts.

Over the past months I integrated my morning art with my every day journal. Now that journal is about to close. In fact I just finished the last morning art page in it. So here are the last seven morning art drawings I did in my journal (the Allround Book about which you can see more here).

This may be my favourite pattern ever!

Now this journal is full it is time to move on to yet another form of morning art. I will separate it from the journal again. I do love the integration, but not all journals are equally suitable to make art in and also I like to have specific books with specific purposes, because...well...I'm a control freak and I like things nicely ordered. ;-)

I will tell you all about my next morning art experimentation when I have the first pages to show, but that's for another post. For now I just wish you a wonderful and artsy day.

Patterns in the Moleskine Sketchbook

I hadn't worked in my Moleskine sketchbook for a while. I mean the actual official sketchbook with the thick paper. I have been working in the ones with thin grid paper, because I have a grid addiction currently that won't go away, but because of that the actual sketchbook was a bit neglected.

So recently I decided to pick it up and do a few drawings. Of course they were also grid drawings (sigh), but at least I set up the grids myself, haha.

These drawing remind me most of colourful mosaics. They were drawn with a Pigma Graphic drawing pen and coloured in with Faber Castell Pittpens (brushpens). The paper of the sketchbook seems absolutely to be made for these markers, so I never use anything else in it. Never change a winning team. ;-)

Hope you are doing something colourful in your neck of the woods and wishing you a wonderful and artsy day.

Random Stuff

Just some random things from the last few months, because that's my life too. ;-)

Yes Easter is on its way, but I saw these easter bunnies in a store in January! Christmas was barely over.

The most beautiful latte I have ever been served.

I discovered Aliexpress and it is very dangerous. Two journal covers for next to nothing.

Sweet snail mail from my online pal Nicole. It's all about coffee and tea.

If I didn't have Spooky I would surely abduct my sisters dog Jinte. In June I get to take care of her again.

A quote by John Muir Laws from his beautiful book about nature journaling.

Preparing for a book club meeting I had to host. It's always a lot of work, but very rewarding.

A shopping spree in the city of Groningen. Also visited a Rodin exhibit there.

My beautifully marked midori.

If you look up the word 'smug' in the dictionary you will find this picture.

Exciting weekend plans.

A trip to the Frisian Museum. I combined an installation by Sybren Renema with the actual view from the museum. :-)

Spooky in the morning.

Taking many a forest walk on my lunch breaks lately.

Election day. It was a difficult choice, 28 parties wanted me to vote for them, but I only had one vote.

And that's how life has been around here lately. Hope you are doing well wherever you are and wishing you a wonderful and artsy weekend!